'Over there is right here in Salt Lake City'
Joe Cannon
Have I helped anyone in need?
"I felt like I had fallen down a rabbit hole into an alternate reality. I had no idea that such conditions existed in my hometown."
That is how Maryann Webster described her experience after her LDS bishop called her to serve in an outreach program to an inner city ward just a couple of miles from her home in the Harvard-Yale neighborhood. "I had been donating money to a United Nations food program thinking that I could help with problems over there in developing countries. I found out that 'over there' is right here in Salt Lake City."
Maryann's bishop asked if she would "just go over to the 8th Ward and see how you can help." When she got there she was overwhelmed with the issues and problems many of these people faced. In particular, Maryann was drawn to refugee families.
Barely noticed by most Utahns, there is a significant population of refugees among us. No, they are not illegal aliens. They are here as part of an international refugee resettlement program. Refugees, by definition, are people who survive focused, hostile, often murderous attempts to force them from their homes by governments or ethnic/religious opponents because of their race, religion or beliefs.
Between 1983 and 2005, more than 15,000 refugees came to Utah; 4,248 of them have come since 2000.
One of these is a Burmese Hill tribeswoman named Heh Htee. She is of the Karen people, a tribe of 7.5 million people along Burma's (Myanmar) eastern border with Thailand. The Karen people have been the target of a brutal genocidal civil war by the Burmese government for decades. According to the British newspaper The Independent, "the situation is now worse than ever ... in the past year, 232 villages in eastern Burma have been destroyed. The Karen Human Rights Group claims the most recent offensive by the Burmese Army is part of a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing."
Htee, as she is called, her husband and children were forced to live in horrible conditions in a resettlement camp for a decade before coming to America. Her husband didn't survive the camp, and she and her three youngest children are now our neighbors in Salt Lake City.
Despite federal refugee funding, Htee and her children live in destitute circumstances, well below what is considered the poverty level. She suffers from health problems, sometimes too sick to get groceries. This suffering is somewhat relieved by the help of neighbors like Maryann Webster and local LDS Bishop Ed Remund, who was also called out of his home ward to serve in the central city area. Remund is a garrulous 74-year-old retired engineer who moved here from California five years ago. When it comes to refugees and others in his "ward," Remund says "it doesn't matter what their race or religion is; they are all God's children, and we try to help all of them."
Recent comments
There have been poor people in Utah ever since the Mormons dispossessed...
Philip Dryer | Aug. 11, 2007 at 7:33 a.m.
I didn't know Joe Cannon was a writer. He might have actually...
Terry Smith | Aug. 10, 2007 at 10:22 p.m.
We ask too much from our Church members constantly. Many members...
Ray | Aug. 10, 2007 at 2:18 p.m.
